Xydonus Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 (edited) If your playing Skyrim you might be interested in a few handy to know information about the game, as it contains a lot of stuff under the covers that isn't obvious. This guide is mostly helpful for new players, and there's bound to be corrections to be made here... Warning - This doesn't contain any major spoilers, but it does have a few minor ones, such as information about certain game aspects - First of all, this game has about 300 hours worth of play - http://skyrimguild.com/unlimited-quests-in-skyrim/ - and unlimited quests to boot. Marriage - You can get married in the game. You need to get a Amulet of Mara, wear it and speak to some woman whose name escapes me at the moment, that's all I know on that subject for the moment. Adoption - Not sure if its present, but there is an Ophanage in the game, and a strong hint of possibility that you can adopt, maybe after doing a quest or getting married. Murder - If you murder someone in cold blood, like an innocent, and if your witnessed, you'll get a big FAT bounty on your head, go too far and the guards might just try to kill you on sight. However, if you kill all the witnesses that originally witnessed your crime, your bounty goes away. Assuming the guards don't get you first! Guilds - Theres a few guilds and factions you can join, and probably a few others that are secret. The Dark Brotherhood are a secret guild of Assassins, joining them isn't easy. I know a way that might be possible but I'm not going to spoil it. Thieves Guild is another secret guild, but not as secret as the Brotherhood. Joining them is fairly easy once you find out where they are based, which I know as well. If stealing and robbing is your thing, you can sell your stolen goods to fences which get unlocked upon joining. You can also pay off any bounties you might get on your head by speaking to a certain guild member. Battle-Born Clans/Companions - There's a few clans you can join and the Companions are a group of hardened mercenaries that I'm told pay well for services rendered. Imperials - Head over to Solitude if your thinking of taking up the cause for Imperials, just be warned that once you do, the Stormcloaks are unlikely to welcome you in. Stormcloaks - These are the so-called rebels of Skyrim, Nords who are fighting their own kin to put Ulfric on the throne. If you want, you can join these at Windhelm. College of Winterhold - College of Mages is the guild to join if your interest is magic. You can learn new spells and get quests here. There's probably a few more as well, minor ones at least. Level Cap - Level cap is confirmed to be around the 80 mark. Companions - You can hire mercenaries, there's one to hire in each of the major cities, they are usually cheap enough, far too cheap if you ask me. You can also get a dog companion in the city that is furthest West. Diseases - You can contract a disease which if you do, you can view its effects in the Active Effects panel. You can get these cured at a shrine or through a cure disease potion. Travel - You can ride by horse after buying one for a thousand gold at a stable, fast travel to discovered locations and hitch a ride in a horse drawn carriage after paying with gold. Crime & Bounties - You can view your crime stats in your General Status menu. Bounties are region based, meaning if you get a bounty in 'The Reach' for example, which is far to the east, you'll have guards trying to kill or arrest you in that region. Murder, stealing, assault, trespassing, lockpicking doors that you shouldn't are all considered criminal offences. Going to jail will hurt your skills and attributes. The more serious the offense, the longer you'll be locked up. You can do murder, steal and other stuff without getting caught, but only as long as you don't get caught! If your being chased by the guards, and get into a fight, you can yield to them by putting your sword away, basically surrendering. Magic - Magic system is fairly easy to grasp, but also complex. eventually you'll get the ability to dual cast spells. You can assign a spell in each hand, left & right. Holding down both left and right mouse buttons combines the spell. So if you have Frost & Fire, you can deal both cold and hot magic. You can also wield a sword in one hand and magic in another if you want. There's also other forms of magic as well. Other forms allow you go invisible, some allow you to summon Daedra or other creatures to you and theres even a spell that allows you to pick up objects far away with your mind. Handy for a thief... Scrolls are cast-away spells that you can find. You don't need to be skilled in magic to use them. Enchanting - You can enchant items by using an Enchanters Arcane Table. Enchanting means you can make them magical. You can for example enchant your non-magical sword, and even give it a name. Enchanting takes a lot of skill, and patience. First, you need to have a soul-gem. Soul gems are used to capture the souls of anything that you might kill (with exception to normal people, not sure?), once you capture the soul it will go into your soul gem. Soul gems come in different sizes, the smaller ones are useful for capturing petty souls, like wildlife and common creatures, bigger soul gems are for bigger prey, like dragons, etc. Having a soul gem though won't allow you to capture a soul, you need to find a spell or an enchanted weapon that allows you to plant a soul capturing spell on a target. As long as that target has this spell effect on it, and you kill it while the spell is active, you get its soul. Souls are also lucrative to sell. Once done you can pretty much enchant anything. You can make magic rings, magic armour and that. But you'll need to learn enchants. This can be done by joining the Magic College or having a magic item and breaking the enchant at a Arcane Table. Once done, the item is destroyed but you would learn its power, which you can then use to enchant items with. Mage characters specialize in enchanting. The following races also get a boost to enchanting - Altmer, Breton, Imperial, and Orc. Alchemy - Handy to know if you want to make your own potions, especially handy for a thief or a reclusive character. Alchemy is more complex than enchanting, and the most complex craft in Skyrim. There's a lot of ingredients, and when you start off you won't know what the ingredients do. Alchemy takes time and patience to learn, it's also difficult to progress in this field. To start alchemy, you can approach a Alchemists Table that you'll find in certain places, a Herbalist might have one for example in a town. Ingredient is the main thing you'll need, this can range from meat, flesh, plants and other sorts of nasty stuff. You can make your own poisons as well. Alchemy is a huge system which you can play with. Best way to advance is to get trained in its use. Each ingredient has about 4 effects to it, and these effects are unknown. For example, if you eat a lot of beef, eventually you'll understand the effects of beef from consuming it a lot. You can also make a fair bit of gold from making your own potions and selling them. Potions have a wide range of quality, from weak to strong, and even more variance in their effects. Poisons - You can apply poisons to the tips of your weapons and arrows. They have a one-hit effect, meaning once you apply it and hit something, the poison is gone and whoever you hit has now got the poison. Races - Just some background on the races - Each race has a gift. A gift is a power that you can use once a day only, this is found in your Magic/Power menu. Mer - (Elven Kind, Orcs are also under this rather than beast - Wiki source)Orcs - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Orc - +10 Heavy Armor, +5 Enchanting, Smithing, Block, Two-Handed, One-Handed Berserker Rage : You take half damage and do double damage for 60 seconds. Altmer - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Altmer - +10 Illusion, +5 Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Enchanting Highborn : Regenerate magicka faster for 60 seconds. Highborn : High Elves are born with 50 extra magicka. Dumner - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Dunmer - +10 Destruction, +5 Alchemy, Illusion, Alteration, Light Armor, Sneak Ancestor’s Wrath : For 60 seconds, opponents that get too close take 8 points per second of fire damage. Resist Fire – Your Dunmer blood gives you 50% resistance to fire. Bosmer (Wood Elves) - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bosmer - +10 Archery, +5 Alchemy, Light Armor, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket Command Animal : Make an animal an ally for 60 seconds. Resist Disease and Poison : Your Bosmer blood gives you 50% resistance to poison and disease. BeastsArgonian - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Argonian - +10 Lockpicking, +5 Restoration, Alteration, Light Armor, Sneak, Pickpocket Histskin : Invoke the power of the Hist to recover health ten times faster for 60 seconds. Resist Disease : Your Argonian blood is 50% resistant to disease. Water Breathing : Your Argonian Lungs can breath underwater. Khajiit - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Khajiit - +10 Sneak, +5 Alchemy, One-Handed, Archery, Lockpicking, Pickpocket Night Eye : Improved night vision for 60 seconds. Claws : Khajiit claws do 15 points of damage. HumansImperial - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial - +10 Restoration, +5 Destruction, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, Block, One-Handed Voice of the Emperor : Calms nearby people for 60 seconds. Imperial Luck : Anywhere gold coins might be found, Imperials always seem to find a few more. Breton - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton - +10 Conjuration, +5 Alchemy, Illusion, Restoration, Alteration, Speech Dragonskin : Absorb 50% of magicka from hostile spells for 60 seconds. Magic Resistance : Breton blood grants a 25% resistance to magic. Nord - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Nord - +10 Two-Handed, +5 Smithing, Block, One-Handed, Light Armor, Speech Battle Cry : Target flees for 30 seconds. Resist Frost: Your Nord blood gives you 50% resistance to frost. Redguard - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Redguard - +10 One-Handed, +5 Destruction, Alteration, Smithing, Block, Archery Adrenaline Rush : Stamina regenerates 10x faster for 60 seconds. Resist Poison : Your Redguard blood gives you 50% resistance to poison. Lore I know a good bit about the lore, but if anyone has questions about it I can answer. The general story, the short version, in Skyrim is that Dragons, long thought to be extinct, have returned. You are the Dragonborn, which you'll find out from playing the game, and your soon tasked to deal with the dragon menace among other things. A civil war has broken out as well as the Dragons, and you can take sides. The rebel Stormcrows have killed the High King of Skyrim, and the Imperials, who represent the Empire, are trying to maintain order. Here's a simplified map of Tamriel, the continent that your on - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Tamriel - Tamriel is just one continent among others on a planet called Nirn, which has 2 moons. Secundus and Masser, Masser being the largest one. Vampires, Werewolfs and Tips - Warning, may contain minor spoilers - This is a subject that I personally don't know much about, since I'm not a vampire or a werewolf, so I can only go by what I've read on the forums here. In Skyrim, there's a possibility that you can contract Porphyria (Vampirism) and Lycanthropy, the werewolf disease. Far as I know, you can contract these diseases by fighting a vampire or a werewolf, and getting bit. Theres a fairly big chance you might get infected. If you do, you have a few days to get cured before you're a vampire or a werewolf for good. You can get cured at a temple or use a potion. Being a vampire requires you to stay in during daylight hours and only going out at night. While you can proceed to leave during daylight, you'll gradually get hurt and will be extremely weak, so any fight you get into might be your last (needs to be confirmed). You can also feed off the living. You can sneak into people's houses and feed off them while they sleep, or however you please (also needs to be confirmed). Lack of feeding will make you weaker. It has its advantages though. Your immortal, as a vampire, but you can still die. Your immune to all diseases, resistant to poisons and are much stronger than a normal person, long as you feed regularly. (Confirmation?) I'm not a vampire myself and theres little info on the subject, but I'm not sure if the guards will attack you on-sight, be it night-time or daylight. Being a werewolf is slightly easier. In werewolf form you'll be attacked on sight, so beware. I don't know if you need to feed regularly as a wolf, I doubt it. Also not sure if your forced to change on certain nights... Skyrim Terms & Other Info 'Hold' is a city in Skyrim. There's 8 holds, 9 if you include Riften. 'Jarl' is like a count or a city leader, each hold has a Jarl, and they run the city. 'High-King' is the King of Skyrim, who is of course dead. Skyrim is now in the hands of the High-Queen. Choosing a race doesn't change the story of the game, but it does effect how your treated in some cases. My character is a Nord, so other Nords call me 'Kinsman', and I seem to be treated with a bit more respect by other Nords. There's no huge difference, just stuff that you might hear. There is racism in Skyrim if you can find it... :P The Empire in the game is loosely based on the Roman Empire. Theres lots of books in the game, and a lot of them give a detailed account of the history of the Empire and its Emperors. Current Emperor in the game is Titus Mede II (Something I read somewhere confirms this). The Thalmer are an alliance of elves that have formed their own empire, called The Dominion. Hope this helps, feel free to add any possible corrections needed. Edited November 14, 2011 by Xydonus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runforitkyle Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 The Thalmer aren't a race but rather an alliance of elves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xydonus Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 The Thalmer aren't a race but rather an alliance of elves. Aye, that was worded wrong. Corrected made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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